Our hands on history and science experiment today was brought to you by Little House on the Prairie.

After a short 5 hours of sleep I was wakened this morning by excited little voices and the pattering of little feet at 6:00 AM. "Mommy! We caught the gopher!" A few minutes later, " Mommy! It had onions in it cheek pouches!" ( Dumb gopher was devouring our onions). A little later, Rick trouped through to get his knife,      " Abrianna wants me to skin the gopher" he explained

Ugghhh... So tired. More pattering feet and  an excited voice, "Abby! Abby wake up! Look! Isn't this gopher paw so cute?"  ( Please don't tell me she brought a rodent foot into the house I shudder.)

Dragging myself, bleary eyed out of bed, I am met at the door by my dear husband with a gopher "pelt" in hand still baring the flesh of the gopher in a few places.

"Ewwww! Take that thing outside! Its gross!" I demand. "No!" he says. "I spent a long time skinning this thing for Abrianna and I don't want the cat or dog to run off with it!" 

"Well," I think." I'll wait for him to leave and figure some way to get it out of here. How can I do this without freaking out?"

"Abrianna, here's some salt. Take that thing outside and put salt on it. Then find a board, hammer, and some nails and we'll stretch it out to dry " ( Thank you to Little House on the Prairie for the inspiration)

Off she trots to gather  the items. Yes, I really did touch that disgusting thing and nail it on  the board. But it went into the garage for the day to dry. 

Daddy helped take it off and rub it with oil to make it more supple.

The crowning touch of this incident  was to find the used trap on my bar by the sink. Shudder